As I was writing a comparison of the Sony a7R III and Nikon D850 today, I was suddenly struck by the realization that it might have already happened. I think there are a lot of interesting differences between the two cameras but very few of them have anything to do with the way we’d tend to categorize them.

With this in mind, my gear of the year is the Sony NP-FZ100. Or, to those of you not obsessed with product codes, the a9 and a7R III’s battery. The simple reason for this is the role it plays in rendering the difference between mirror-less and mirror-full cameras moot.

Good enough: the threshold beyond which any further excess is superfluous

It all comes down to the idea of ‘good enough.’ And please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not talking about accepting the mediocre or tolerating the barely sufficient. Instead I’m referring to the threshold beyond which any further excess is, if not excessive, then at least superfluous: it offers no practical benefit.

Once I have enough battery life to get me through a demanding day of shooting, then any extra left in the tank is all very nice, but not exactly necessary. I recently spent a morning shooting both stills and video of a cyclocross race with the a7R III. Shooting a mixture of JPEGs, uncompressed Raws and 4K video, I comfortably churned out more than the 64GB capacity of my memory card and had to switch to a second. What I didn’t come close to doing was running the battery out. At the end of the racing, I still had more than 27% charge left, despite the sub-10°C temperatures.

The move to the 'Z-Type' battery on the right is the difference between me having to worry about charging and carrying spare batteries and me never having to think about it.

This suddenly eliminates the constant battery anxiety I’ve always felt with previous Sony mirrorless cameras (and that's without including the RX1R II, an otherwise fabulous camera whose butterfly-like lifespan prompts even its proponents joke “it’s like shooting film: you need to think about what you’re going to do with your 36 exposures”). Because when I’m shooting, I don’t ever want to be worrying about whether I’ve brought enough batteries, and which ones are charged. I don’t even want to have to think about it.

In fairness Panasonic got here first, having put a big battery in its GH models as far back as the GH3, but I didn't notice it to the same extent because I was primarily shooting video with those models.

This eliminates the constant battery anxiety I’ve previously felt with many mirrorless cameras

More demanding shooters, be they photojournalists or longer-form filmmakers, can always attach a battery grip for longer duration, but for me, the FZ100 means the a7R III is able to surpass my ‘good enough’ threshold. So, while the D850 can boast a very impressive 1840 shots per charge, for me and my photography, that’s well into the territory of overkill.

So, as a technology that allows mirrorless cameras (hopefully of all brands) to offer the same practical benefits as their DSLR rivals, my gear of the year is a battery. Because it makes the a9 and a7R III into significantly better cameras, not just because it pulls another leg out from under all those tired ‘mirrorless vs DSLR’ arguments.

If the gear of the year is a battery then the photo gear industry is not exactly kicking it out of the park with innovation in 2017If the gear of the year is a battery then the photo gear industry is not exactly understanding what customers are expecting when using its products.I agree the photo gear of the year is a battery.

I've been finding it increasingly cringe-worthy that many (especially retailers) still refer to mirrorless cameras as 'compact system cameras'. That may have been what the NEX-7 was in 2011, but we're well beyond that as a group classification now.

"The move to the 'Z-Type' battery on the right is the difference between me having to worry about charging and carrying spare batteries and me never having to think about it."

Have used the smaller batteries since the NEX-7, A7R, through to the A7Rii (no interest in upgrading to the Mark 3). Never had to think about (or worry about!)carrying a couple of extra batteries. Just came back from a trip to Java. I had to change batteries once in the middle of the day. Not an issue when one is changing lenses, memory cards, and possibly filters. I really don't get the 'battery anxiety' that some people seem to suffer from...

I think for the average consumer it really is not a problem. But in a working condition is completely different. Imagine working in an event for a few hours putting the camera through its paces continuously throughout the duration of the event, you would want as little things to worry about as possible.

...It's ok that they bring that bigger battery, but is it a real problem to carry four of those old batteries with you, to get over the day? For me, it was ok. With my 5D MKII I needed 1-2 batteries for a day...

I am so excited, I just sold all my gear on ebay and ordered the Sony NP-FZ100 Battery, I have no idea how I am going to take a photo with it!! This site is becoming more and more like Consumer Reports and that is not a good thing.

How many people with P&S cameras take more than 400 pictures during the day before they can recharge the camera battery overnight? I want a P&S to fit inside a shirt pocket or I may has well carry a MFT or DSLR.

These days, the key differentiators for competing cameras isn't going to be the quality of their RAWs or how fast they can shoot with AF. Yes, there will be differences but they will be incremental for the most part (14.7 vs 14.8 DR...seriously???).

I am perfectly OK with the selection of a battery for Gear of the Year - It addresses one of the key gaps of MILC (versus DSLRs) and, in my opinion, is more significant than the RAW differences between the Canon/Nikon/Sony flagships.

Nikon D80, lovely first camera, most days (if battery reloaded), no problems, long days however it was.

D800. Gets even more shots out of battery, even with increase in resolution. That being said, the days you love to take non stop pictures, even one battery could be to few. Just playing around in menu's out of boredom (no smartphone back then for me at least), uses power. I got a second battery (used ofc, to reduce price). This battery saved me about 10 times. When I travelled to greece two weeks, while it probably saved me 0-3 days, it was VERY handy to have one charging at house wild taking the other out to take picture, and switch. The moment your battery loads... you can't take pictures. I've grown to love about backup battery.

D810 with grip and two batteries. Just as amazing. In some cases even better cause i don't even have to worry about switching battery (both in grip)

Like a car with an undersized gastank it gets annoying after awhile. Many DSLR users must know this because in the years I've read the announcements and forum talk of a new mirrorless you could usually see one of them lamenting the poor batterylife the camera was going to have :)

What a non-issue. The only concern for battery life is long-form video, in which an AC adaptor should be used. For stills, start the day with a new battery and take some spares. Despite the great modern gear, there always seems to be something to whine about. Try 36 exposures and breathing in toxic chemicals as we did for decades if you want to complain.

Uh almost. You are remote and away from AC power, and video is very demanding on battery life. And yes yes this IS the 21st century and great battery life is an expectation. Rightfully so. So silly how people talk about how it was years ago how we did without. It is about choices. Plenty of cameras with great battery efficiency and performance. Some not so much. Your usage experience may vary.

You can plug Sonys directly into USB batteries for extra power while continously shooting, or just get a dummy battery and power the camera directly off of a huge USB battery. Video pros use external batteries all the time. Even ones using DSLRs. ;)

Great point. Some days it seems like all I do is charge camera batteries, flash batteries, batteries for my video camera, batteries for the movie lights....not to mention buying and carrying non-rechargeables for microphones and light meters. We're not photographers anymore, we're battery tenders. And @mmx in the olden days most cameras needed a tiny button cell to run the light meter, an added side bonus of those batteries were that they were filled with a poisonous mercury mixture so you had to be careful how you disposed of them—dogs and babies would swallow them and die.

"Ironically in those days you had cameras that needed no batteries at all. Talk about progress."Actually they all had a small internal battery to power the small bits of electronics required. Most people just didn't know about it because they never seemed to run flat.

It should be interesting to see how well this new battery holding up in extremely cold weather, with some measurement against others. Some battery lose power much quicker in cold weather than in normal weather.

That's one thing you could call a mirrorless advantage. Having the camera running all the time means constant heat generation, so the camera kind of acts like a battery heater in cold weather. Whereas DSLRs don't generate much of any heat unless they're in Live View.

MILCs have always had a problem with battery life. I might be mistaken but the only older MILC model with a DSLR battery was the Nikon V1. Otherwise the manufacturers keep crippling their otherwise nice cameras with teeny batteries that are barely sufficient for small compact cameras.

That said, any camera out there is light years ahead of any smartphone when it comes to batteries. This is what people barely consider when they talk about 'smartphone photography'. That 'camera' is dead within a few hours of usage. Yes you can carry a powerbank (I do and most travellers do) but it makes using the phone to take pics even less convenient.

Kind of true. My Google Pixel does quite well really. Though my dual battery pack D series Nikon will eat it for lunch duration wise, it is still a viable choice in some to most of my impromtu instances.

It could be done sooner, just wasn't a priority for Sony, until it was...

The smartphone comparison is interesting tho because mirrorless battery life is actually more like that than anything, people need to start thinking about it in terms of uptime or hours of use rather than shot count or other more ambiguous metrics that in this case don't reflect actual usage.

Nobody talks about smartphone battery life (or any other modern gadget really) in terms of web pages loaded, emails sent, etc.

If it's an electronic device that has a constant power draw (eg sensor feed to displays and said displays themselves) then battery life over time is fairly predictable, specially on a device like a camera where usage case doesn't really increase/decrease power draw significantly (outside of 4K video recording).

The first cameras to use the NP-FW50 were the NEX-3/5. If you check their grip, there's no space left at all for any larger battery. Sony always goes the extra mile to ensure that you can use your older/newer accessories with your devices, which is why you can all their DSLR/SLT use the same batteries, from the very first DSLR-A100 to the latest ILCA-99M2, and another for all mirrorless since the NEX-3, which is also by the way the one used in the RX10 series.This is why they didn't change the battery type for mirrorless cameras until the ILCE-9, when they broke compatibility. However, you should be able to use the old batteries on the new cameras thanks to the adapter supplied with the charger.

I believe camera batteries are now being shipped fully discharged to eliminate any chance of fire/explosion. Previously, the connections were recessed into the battery to prevent shorting out (older ones were easily accessed on the surface). But by packing more power into even smaller containers, things have apparently become too dangerous for batteries that are just sitting still.

Most of the ones I've bought (first party anyway) usually come in a little plastic caddy/tray or a little zip-loc bag (the kind with the white zipper closure). I kinda like the latter since it's slimmer and keeps anything from touching the contacts in my bag.

Sony pulled off a very neat trick with this battery. Battery-wise, Sony users fell into 2 Groups - those that didnt want a bigger battery because they didnt want a bigger camera and those who wanted a bigger batter necause the 'needed' longer battery life. Sony satisfied both Groups by increasing battery life without a sizable increase in the battery or camera.

Agreed i was one that didn't want the grip to grow and it hardly did so thats good. But having i would guess 2.5x longer runtime and they seem much better in the cold is welcomed. Its indeed no magic at all but sony had to find the balance between size and where to leave it in the body and i am sure all a7 and up owners will be happy. Now not sure how they will get it into a a6xxx line.

True the grip has evolved over time but its really not that much bigger. I put the mini grip (pinky grip) on the a6000, a6500, a7 and a7R3 and you can see it evolve compared to the smallest (a6000) its about 6mm deeper but also less wide in some places. I think this has partly todo with how they expected you to old the camera and that has changed over time too with more FE and bigger lenses.

An interesting twist on the gear-of-the-year concept. However, one still has to think about batteries on ALL digital cameras: they all need to be regularly charged. To me, the difference between DSLR and mirrorless battery life never was all that significant.

I used to go for YEARS without having to change the battery on my Minolta SRT-101. Beyond that, if the battery was dead, all I lost was the light meter; the rest of the camera continued to work fine and I was pretty good at estimating exposure.

My point is that carrying a couple of extra batteries and 256GB SD cards is actually less annoying than carrying extra film was, and finding a way to recharge batteries is easier than finding more film was. I suppose one higher-capacity battery is better than multiple smaller ones in terms of airline restrictions on carrying multiple Lithium batteries, but it's not really a big deal and I always would carry a backup in case a battery fails (as in starts to swell, not runs out of charge).

Yep we computer up on these cameras and drive everything electrically. Loved the SRT 101, and the Canon ftb, and other film cameras. A simpler time without computers, but without the cool right now results digital gives. I used to love or dread with anticipation how things would develop.

Just like the puny batteries in the RX100 and RX1 series. The R10 series, being DSLR sized, got the full size (at the time) mirrorless battery. Will be interesting to see if they'll add this bigger one to the RX10 V...

My small 1" NX Mini has a 2300mAh battery. This camera is a lot smaller than my A7II with its 960mAh battery and was introduced before the A7II. I never understood why Sony kept these small capacity batteries in the II series, not that it matters much for me in my use cases.

The tiny GM1 (smaller than an RX100) has like a 700mAh battery... Sony definitely under spec'd it's A7 batteries from the start. The A7 bodies have grown a little but not *that* much, they must've just gotten better at allocating space for it between the body and the deeper grips.

Indeed. A few years ago I went on a trip to Israel. Hiking from Nazereth to Sea of Galilee (4 days, 40+miles/60+ Km) was part of it. I chose a GH4 over Sony's offerings and battery life was part of the decision.

Excuse me, but if this battery solely had made an already unworkable situation workable (or enjoyable), I would have shared your enthusiasm for Gear of the year.

At this point, it seems you are rewarding Sony for just behaving not-so-bad. Their camera+battery lives have been poorer than the competition.

And my point is, maybe A7-r III itself has contributed to your battery happiness -- being more efficient. So you really are applauding the A7r III + Battery, aren't you? (And I would readily share your enthusiasm..)

In any case, the real winner should be something which doesn't just pass your comfort zone, but goes way beyond it -- it should be in this case NOT be a Sony battery for sure. <Unless I have missed something sensational about this battery that you wrote. Is this some other kind of battery technology?>

BTW, I am sure A7r III makes a very pleasurable camera with low battery worries. And that helps me in not rejecting it as a possible toy to purchase next :-)

As I say, it's about crossing a threshold. Not from 'unworkable' to 'not-so-bad,' but from 'fine' to 'sufficiently good that I never have to think about it.'

The a7R III may have been the first time I noticed it (my corrected text concedes that I should have spotted it in the GH series, circa GH3), but it's about experiencing mirrorless as a whole maturing to the point that there's one difference fewer to consider. (I'm not certain of the Z100 being a new technology, but it does seem more energy dense than other similarly-sized packs).

Is the NP-FZ100 bigger or smaller than the NP-FM500H used in Sony's larger camera bodies? Can we get a picture of those two next to each other? I wonder why they went with a new battery instead of increasing the cell capacity of the NP-FM500H. Aftermarket NP-FM500H batteries match the capacity of the NP-FZ100.

The NP-FM500H uses standard 18490 cells. You can get those from 800 to 1300 mAh in capacity. A search for FM500H 2200 brings up lots of prepackaged options. There are 2600 mAh ones--probably not reliable.

According to Sony's listed dimensions the NP-FZ100 is a bit larger and heavier than the NP-FM500H. I've heard the opposite though, so I am curious. Maybe the FZ is using 18500 cells which are slightly larger.

The Sony NP-FM50 from 2002 which the NP-FM500H descends from only had 1180 mAh rating. It looks like Sony has stopped using M series batteries in all their other devices. A-mount is just using obsolete batteries.

Bring it on Panasonic and Olympus. Though I am not holding my breath especially as the upcoming GH-5s is coming and Panasonic may not do FF at all for some time. Olympus, do they really have too? Don't know there. But if they did go FF. Good for us. Competition improves the breed.

It would make much more sense for Panasonic or Olympus, if they ever expand to larger-sensor cameras, to go into crop-medium format. Then they'd be maintaining their current competitive niche with Fuji, while avoiding getting crushed by the full frame big three. There's no realistic business upside to trying to take on CaNikony.

Since I have owned cameras (40+years) batteries have never been an issue. Does your camera use a battery? Then have spares. For any photographer who is "prepared" batteries are a moot point. State of charge is no different than shutter speed or aperture or ISO or white balance etc. I do applaud advancement in battery life and appreciate longer lived batteries but to make it monumental is silly. When the battery gets low, change it, simple.

With an increasing number of cameras not coming with a charger, such that you have to spend part of the night before swapping batteries in and out of the camera to top them up, being prepared can get pretty tedious.

If you're someone who's never accidentally left their spare battery on the charger, as you rush out of the house, that's lovely.

But, just like an improvement in AF performance, I like the idea of having one less thing to worry about. It means I can focus on shutter speed and composition, rather than something that's essentially logistics or admin.

It's not a moot point if you're 1900 meters underground in the oldest working emerald mine in Colombia, where it's 99 percent humidity and 125 degrees! You don't want to be swapping batteries down there in a safe way just when the miner hits a pocket of emeralds and you're busy in the corner changing batteries.

Like I said "prepared". What if in your hurry you forgot to get gas and were left stranded on the road? No photo shoot at all. Enough drama about batteries. But I'm sure someone else will come up with some other reason to make a mountain out of this molehill.

Having used sony's for a few years i always made remark its not a big deal and in many ways thats true. I always had one spare in my pocket and about 5 in the bag. But i have been using the A7R3 for a few days now i have to admit the z100 are relaxing about 2.5 times longer in usage at least and seem to handle cold much better...

Richard, perhaps DPR should be chastising camera companies for NOT including a separate battery charger, especially given the current move towards high end pricing. Pretty much any camera costing over $500 should have a separate charger included.

Just carry a spare battery or two. Even with my Nikon and GH cameras, I ALWAYS carry spare batteries.

Dunno. My A6000 and A6300 would stay on 0% for quite some time before completely dying. Longer than any phone I've owned. They tell you well, well in advance when you'll need to change batteries. Then again, Nikon still gives you a 4 segment meter, so you're left wondering what might happen when you hit that last 1/4. Unless you *gasp* MENU DIVE! :o

I'd agree that this is silly... however I did once go away for a weekend and find my XT1 batteries flat once I had arrived. Even more annoyingly you can't charge them in the body, and I hadn't brought the charger.

This is a bug not a feature. Innaccurate battery readings is a common side effect of using 3rd party batteries. And I have a hard time believing "quite some time" for any A6000 battery on any meter reading.......

Bravo for recognizing the importance of reliable power. I just shot over 1k photos on a single battery with my D7200 at an airshow. Sure would be nice to expand the CIPA battery specs to something more meaningful than a single number.

Agreed, shooitng style makes a big difference. I routinely get 2000+ shots on a single D850 battery, best one was 2400 I think.But as customers we are spoiled and don't want to think too much about it, so a single number is suitable I guess :-)

Surprising, but good choice. Battery life is one of the most significant drawbacks of mirrorless cameras (i.e. a dealbreaker for many), and this upgrade helped Sony close the gap with DSLRs in terms of usability/reliability big time.This battery is more of a "game changer" than the entire A9, dare I say.

It's really not, and battery life wasn't that big a deal... Sony was just a little worse off than other mirrorless players with regards to battery life, and they've addressed it, the battery is still not good enough to leave your camera turned on 6+ hours tho (which a DSLR user could easily do)... Whether that's a big deal is subjective, it's never been an issue for me but I quickly realized mirrorless battery life was about uptime (like a phone) and not shot count.

To wit, the only people to whom mirrorless battery life should've been a really big deal (that I can think of) are pros shooting long events that don't have any breaks or people in precarious conditions where swapping a battery could be not only a hassle but a hazard... If you need hours upon hours of camera uptime then their 2x larger battery might still not cut it...

You have a point, but consider the fact that it's a potential point of failure that you don't want. If you have to swap the battery 4 times per shoot that's 4 times you can potentially miss (multiple) important shots by having to run back to the media room and grab a spare one. Sure, you can keep one or more on your person at all times, but it's about minimizing risk and a bigger battery helps.Also if you go through X batteries a day, you have to recharge X batteries as well which can be a hassle.I'm looking at this as a pro so I might be biased, but it cannot be denied that this is a serious complaint you see frequently, and they addressed it. For me personally, I wouldn't even consider shooting Sony professionally because of the highly limited battery life + 1 card slot. Those are two issues for pros they have now addressed.

I'm an amateur, not a pro, and the a7Rii's short battery life was a PITA. I carry 2 spares, but batteries choose to die just when you're about to take a good but fleeting shot. And the spares lose charge sitting on the shelf. (I know that will still happen, but from a higher level of capacity.) A battery upgrade was a necessary condition for me to switch to an 7Riii.

But most of these comments miss the point Richard is making -- when you compare the Nikon D850 and the Sony a7Rii, the mirrorless vs. pentaprism distinction is altered. A battery that narrows the overall performance distinction MILCs and DSLRs and focuses attention on the things that matter to the image, like focus speed and dynamic range.

"but batteries choose to die just when you're about to take a good but fleeting shot"

Sounds like bad supply management. Unlike DSLRs, Sony mirrorless always gives you an up-to-the-second calculation of remaining battery power. If you don't have your spare waiting nearby once you hit 10% or so, it's your own fault for being unprepared, not the camera's.

You guys apparently completely missed the point about "minimising risk". Any "self-respecting photographer", to use your own words, knows that not everything is under your control, and sh*t WILL happen, usually when you don't want it to happen.

I'll correct my own example... I get 2000+ shots on a D850 battery, vs 300 (ish?) on the average mirrorless. So that's at least SEVEN batteries you'll go through whereas right now I have to change it once during a shoot, at most. So seven possible points of failure (didn't have one on your person, grabbed the wrong one, timed it incorrectly, forgot to charge it, equipment failure, not in a position where you're able to change it etc etc etc). If you have to walk around with 6-8 batteries in your pocket, this kind of stuff will happen. Let's not pretend that this is not a risk.

So this battery cuts that problem down by half. That's a great step in the right direction.

This is true. A battery with 650 shots in it's belly isn't going to last as long as a DSLR barely with three times that many. Everything has its tradeoffs. The D850 is a superb tool for photography, as is the a7Riii. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, and if you already have a D850 you'd be nuts to think about switching. Enjoy the Nikon in peace.

" I'll correct my own example... I get 2000+ shots on a D850 battery, vs 300 (ish?) on the average mirrorless. So that's at least SEVEN batteries you'll go through whereas right now I have to change it once during a shoot, at most. "

Shot count is meaningless, please understand that as it makes that kinda statement seem ridiculous once you have the facts. The ONLY way you could ever chew the 7 Sony batteries in a row (even for an older A7) is if you were literally shooting for 14 hours or more straight with 0 breaks and the camera was on the entire time. Mirrorless battery life is about uptime, shot count measurements (including CIPA) are meaningless.

Now Sony's older bodies did perform under the average for newer mirrorless bodies, and if you do actually go on 14 shoots as a pro then my hat off to you and you have a valid case for scoffing at mirrorless, but that isn't a very common usage case.

You could easily get 5000 shots on any mirrorless battery if you're shooting action and machine gunning thru bursts, the act of taking a shot (as counterintuitive as it might seem to a DSLR user) takes up a negligible amount of power. The act of holding the camera up while it's turned on with the sensor feeding a constant stream of data to the displays and the EVF/rear-LCD consuming their own power accounts for like 95% of the battery drain.

Hence why it's about uptime, not shot count, hence why for many (specially non pros) it was never a big deal.

I'm a photographer, not a lab tester. Of course I'm not firing off 2000 shots in a row, but over the course of a full day (event or competition). The camera stays on the entire time, probably about 8-10 hours straight.You tell me... am I getting close to changing the battery 7 times on a mirrorless with that kind of assignment?

No, definitely not 7 times, 3-4 is likely tho and I fully recognize that's a hassle for a working pro. I don't see why recognizing the facts as they're presented by people that have done the proper research warrants a snarky response about not being a lab tester but w/e.

Are you actually shooting and/or anticipating shooting (hence the camera must be on) for 10 hours straight btw? No lunch breaks or breaks of any kind?

Genuine question btw, no snark, you're a hard working pro if so and the previous A7 batteries were definitely a worst case scenario/hassle if so. That being said, the new one still isn't a game changer because it won't last 8 hours of uptime either.

I do indeed do a lot of shoots that last 10 hours, often skipping lunch (but that's my own silly mistake because I get carried away). But batteries with limited life don't die during lunch breaks ;-)I managed to get 3000+ on a single charge this weekend btw. Nikon pulled off some kind of magic with that updated D850 battery.

If battery life is that important, just use a USB battery. Standard Sony FW50 is 1100mah, new Sony FZ100 is 2280mah. 5000mah USB batteries are very cheap along with dummy batteries to use them with. Even 10,000mah is now on the low end.

I still really enjoy DPReview for the forums and the reviews, but I think their editorial policy sucks. It seems they are challenged by how many silly and uninteresting articles they can produce. Is there anything special about this battery outside of being larger than the old ones Reading this article sheds no light on this question.

'It seems they are challenged by how many silly and uninteresting articles they can produce.'

Sometimes I feel the same way about our comments... as Bronto99 says (and this article makes clear) the bigger battery is significant not only for Sony users, but for mirrorless ILC technology as a whole. It further closes the gap between DSLRs and mirrorless.

I think the article could've made it's intended point a little better if it didn't focus so much on the one battery (to the point of naming it one of the best products if the year, c'mon, you knew that was gonna raise eyebrows) and simply posited how several different high end mirrorless bodies over the last 1-2 years have been able to provide just enough battery for users to once again forget about it's use...

Sony was relatively late to do so tho, which only doubles the negative feedback at giving them praise for finally finding enough room for a decent sized battery... The fact that there was no major technological breakthrough here, along with plenty of people already getting by just fine with the lower battery life of other mirrorless cameras, results in the mostly negative comments.

People that didn't jump on mirrorless from a DSLR with lower standby drain were never that put off by the status quo, just like those that jumped on smartphones early are not still bemoaning how a flip phone could last a week. Turning the camera off every once in a while and thinking in terms of uptime rather than shot count does take a little effort.

The big deal is not the battery, but the rearrangement of the internals of the a7riii to be able to accept a battery that is twice the size of the a7rii cell ad not change the dimensions of the camera.If there is anything revolutionary about the new battery it's that Sony chose not to double the price.

Barney, no it doesn't matter. As I stated above, small form factor equals small battery, and a small battery equals short life. The ONLY thing that will change that is (much) higher power density batteries, and we are nowhere near that yet.

"...while the D850 can boast a very impressive 1840 shots per charge, for me and my photography, that’s well into the territory of overkill.".

I just want to point out that with the A9 e-shutter, you could probably get 3,500+ shots on a single charge. WAY more than the D850 which has to physically move stuff around for every shot. With the A9, 99% of my shots (except with flash and other minor things) use only the e-shutter, so there you have it.

Why not indeed? That 100Kw battery has made it possible to drive over 300 miles on a single charge, something no other electric car has been able to do and still can't do except for the Tesla. It is now in the range of a gas-powered car, so all jesting aside, I do think the Tesla battery changes the world of cars immeasurably.

I'm with Bronto. Think about it - if electric car battery life was a major factor keeping people from buying them over hybrids or gasoline engines, and suddenly battery life is no longer something that is hugely detrimental against Tesla because of technology advances, why not?

Full support of this choice for GotY, especially given the recent complaints made by a pro photojournalist on Fuji X-T2 battery life (although they seem to be representative of an outlier case).

@Bronto99Electric cars may become cleaner in the future, but believing in 2017 that electric cars are cleaner is totally childish.Electric cars will be clean when electricity is clean.Ho do we make electricity on Earth? Mostly by burning coal, gas, or splitting uranium atoms... Clean, mmmm?Tesla is American right? In the US, more than 80% of the power used to charge batteries is generated using fossile sources or nuclear.In addition, manufacturing batteries generates a lot of pollution.Again, I'm not trying to defend gasoline... I hope that the situation will improve rapidly. When electricity is made from renewable sources electric cars will be clean. Pretending that they are clean today is just wrong.

I guess I'm the rare breed here that use a single FW50 for a whole day, shoot around 500-1000 Raws since NEX-7 to A7rII, the only difference is: I turn off the camera when it's more than 10 seconds between shoot to shoot.

Well, I’m in that group too as I got 820 shots with my A7 and finished with 37%. With the A7II the record is around 680 pics a bit less probably because the ibis, still like 3 times more of what is expected

Yup, I use the auto power off setting between 10 sec and 1 min, depending on what I'm shooting. Hit the shutter button as I'm raising the camera up, and it's ready to shoot by the time it reaches my eye.

Right. That works. I do the same when I am out and about. I have the NEX7 and now the A7R.Around the farm, I am mainly fiddling and faffing about. The A7R uses a lot more juice than the nex7 with the same battery. Not sure what the culprit is. The processor and higher sensor resolution, or the mechanical shutter that on the A7R that does not have an electronic first curtain. Or the display. But I now have 3 batteries and 2 cameras that take them. And an external charger which I thankfully still had from the NEX7, as the A7R did not come with one.

I don't know if you are being ironic or not, but Sony mirrorless have in my experience been ranted at for "No fast lenses!!" then "Only large lenses!!" and always "Battery life sucks!". Gear of the year should reflect what made the most impact on the photographic you and if that's a much indirectly asked-for (I've seen mostly rants of what is and isn't) improvement for Sony mirrorless then that is certainly OK with me. And I agree.

It's something I allude to in the story. I was essentially writing a Gear of the Year based on the D850 and a7r III and finding it near-impossible to choose between them, but then found myself thinking about what a leap forward the inclusion of a decently-sized battery was for the R III.

It's so easy to get wrapped up in excitement for the latest tech and overlook the smaller changes. If a move to larger batteries eliminates a key performance difference between DSLR and Mirrorless (all mirrorless, not just Sony), then it'll be a change that benefits a lot more people than the arrival of two $3000+ flagships.

@Becksvart I wasn't being ironic at all. An improvement in battery life isn't an improvement that deserves to be defined "gear of the year". Probably it would if it lasted ten times longer... If battery life was really crippled, than you can't give a prize to sony for making it normal again, because it was their fault in the first place.

@Richard ButlerI think that "gear of the year" should reflect something more profound than "it's bigger" or "lasts longer". Those improvements are so simple that any consumer can notice them without your help. After all I'm absolutely sure that you pack two batteries anyway. A "gear of the year" should have more ramifications.

After all I wonder why no one chose the video stabilization shown in google nexus phones, that is something that seems really ground breaking! Maybe it's still an experimental feature which isn't active in the "in store" phones.

Every new camera fixes a problem in the old one. Though some even create new problems (*cough* D7500 *cough). If there were no problems to fix, we'd have the perfect camera, and everyone but that one manufacturer would stop making cameras altogether.

I agree with the good enough philosophy. Happily, or maybe sadly for gearheads, we are reaching the point of good enough on many specs. I'm not in the market for a Sony ILC but when I saw the new battery capacity it did take away one major objection the Sonys.

It's getting beyond silly when Canon releases hot items like the 6Dm2 & 5Dm4 and we have DPR staff picking a freaking SONY BATTERY over them. The love for Sony has gone to silliness levels around here!!!!

Why do you think so many professional photographers who invested like 50,000 dollars into Canon bodies and glass take the loss and switch to Sony Alpha? Canon makes amazing glass but their bodies are lagging behind the competitors at least 5 years.

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